Thankful Feast at Shindand

A little bit about Thanksgiving in a war zone…

We were pretty much ordered to take the day off, so I took that to heart and slept in a bit then got up and took a long walk.  After my shower I donned comfy civvies – my blue jeans and a seasonally colored top.  Worked on my room for a while, checked emails and such (okay, so I did a little work) then headed over to a special Thanksgiving service at the chapel at noon, which was a blessing in itself.  A normal lunch followed afterwards in the American DFAC which was in the process of being decorated for the big feast later in the day.

We headed back over to the DFAC a little after 6pm, and the lines were the longest I have ever stood in while deployed.  Literally hundreds of people were lined up for the goodies (where do all these people eat every other night of the week?) and it took us over 45 minutes to get inside, but all was well worth the wait.  As you can see from the pictures above and below, the locals had spent many hours – days probably – in the decorations and intricate carvings on the fruit and melons.  There was even a diorama of sorts of the New York Harbor where the Statue of Liberty was a centerpiece.  I have no idea what it and the shoreline buildings were carved out of, but they were orange.  Some sort of clear blue gel for the water, and little green trees, small boats – very detailed.

But finally we had our rectangular cardboard plates and plasticware in hand at the start of the food line.  It is tradition in most deployed areas that instead of the normal DFAC workers, the highest ranking officers do all the work serving the soldiers.  The first “server” we encountered was our base Commander, COL Bowers, who graciously loaded my plate with a variety of meats.  Lots of traditional favorites and many, many other options as well.  The cocktail shrimp table was manned by Chaplain (CPT) Johnson, who was sporting a hair-net over his completely bald shiny (shaven) head.  Another table serving sparkling cider.

The photo above is of my personal feast – a tasty rib-eye, some actual roast turkey (not the usual processed turkey loaf), a few bits of roast lamb (which was awesome by the way), smashed taters, dressing, potato salad which I ended up not eating, and an awesome salad with actual tomatoes and hard-boiled egg.  All topped off with a Coke Zero.  And of course, a bowl of plain old cocktail shrimp minus any sauce.  I was harassed and generally razzed by more than one for being a purist on the “no gravy, no shrimp sauce, no cranberry sauce, no thank you” issue, but it was all in good fun.  I decided to skip dessert due to the size of the meal, but there was also available a goodly number of cakes, pies, cookies and ice cream. 

All in all it was a lovely day with plenty of time to reflect on the blessings we could still enjoy, even if missing family and friends back home.  And such a blessing it is, just knowing that there are people who miss us while we’re deployed.

By the way, if I had decided to do ice cream, I would have added chocolate sauce.